Continuing the discussion from Speculation About Trump's Underlying Reasons for Bombing Iran and Other Targets:
After consulting the mods we have agreed that a new thread is the way to proceed to avoid a hijack. We were talking about the US support for the Shah and what they did to stop Mr. Mossadegh’s coup and how this lead to antiamericanism and the current war in Iran (or not), and whether trump would have one excuse less to attack Iran had things developed differently back then. I have chosen IMHO because it gives more flexibility to wander around; I welcome tangents, loops, and lateral thinking (within reason: please no pet pictures or favourite recipes). Feel free to elaborate. Here we go:
History is complicated and convoluted. Regarding the Shah, and whether he or his regime was better or worse for Iran and the world in general than Mossadegh or not, I would like to make a detour to West Berlin, 1967. The Shah came to visit. It turned out to be a fiasco. They brought with them around 150 Jubelperser. The German wikipedia writes about them:
The term ‘Jubelperser’ [Jubel, like Julibating – Pardel_Lux] (also referred to in the media as ‘Prügelperser’ [Prügel, like bully, someone who beats other people – Pardel_Lux]) was used to describe a group of around 150 Iranian citizens who accompanied Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his wife Farah Pahlavi on their state visit to West Berlin on 2 June 1967. The group consisted of members of the Iranian secret service SAVAK and compatriots hired by the agency, who posed as pro-Shah demonstrators and, with the tacit approval of the Berlin police, used violence against peaceful counter-demonstrators. The term has entered the German language as a pejorative term for (usually non-violent) claqueurs, i.e. paid applauders.
Translated with DeepL(dot)com (free version)
The demonstrations were attacked by the Jubelperser with sticks and stones, the German police did not intervene and even protected the provocateurs. One policeman, Karl-Heinz Kurras, shot one demonstrator, Benno Ohnesorg. His death was to become one of the most famous and consequencial pictures in post-war Germany:
When I say history is convoluted, I mean, among other things:
More than forty years later, in 2009, it was revealed that at the time of the events Kurras had been an informal collaborator of the East German secret police Stasi and a long-time member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling East German Communist party
Ohnesorg’s death served as a rallying point for the left, and spurred the growth of the left-wing German student movement. The Movement 2 June group, founded around 1971, was named for the day of his death.
Although the 2 June Movement did not share the same ideology as the Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Gang), these organizations were allies.
In 1979 the RAF tried to kill Alexander Haig, by then NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe:
On 25 June 1979, Haig was the target of an assassination attempt in Mons, Belgium. A land mine blew up under the bridge on which Haig’s car was traveling, narrowly missing his car and wounding three of his bodyguards in a following car. Authorities later attributed responsibility for the attack to the Red Army Faction (RAF). In 1993 a German court sentenced Rolf Clemens Wagner, a former RAF member, to life imprisonment for the assassination attempt.
What I am trying to say, among other things, is that the Shah was odious enough to be hated in Iran in 1953 and in West Germany in 1967. His visit radicalized a whole generation of Germans and gave rise to two terrorist organisations. The East German Stasi also played a role. One of those terrorist organisations almost killed the US NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe in 1979.
Just imagine the USA had not interfered in Iran’s Mossadegh affair. Maybe the world would be a better place today.
And this detour is just barely scratching the surface. History is weird.
The quoted texts are taken from different wikipedia articles, some in German (translated), some in English. All were linked.
